How the worlds evolve.

[Nigel]

I'm not sure if this is a general topic, but I thought it was interesting enough to point out how the econ changes on some worlds, i'm gonna gloss over the current planitia.

Start :Fresh world, buildings flourishing and towns being planned, low wages standard and high price materials common.

Developed: 2 towns on the world, and more buildings flourish to grab the extra room - tents a plenty.

More Development - More towns, and taxs start to flux, competition sticks it's heel in.

Balanced - Enough towns to last and all the major players have sunk their teeth in, prices continue to change and evolve to tackle new competition, and everything seems to be going steadily

Slump - Deaf rids the world for some time and buildings start to highly swap hands, recycliing the old to make way for the new business players willing to take them on. Severe shorages crop up, but plans are afoot to tackle them head on by the more serious players.

Current State:Advanced: Price lowering is more fierce now, tax's are all over the place, and the current business of choice seems to change more rapidly, a high shortage of workers (esp laborers) means the low wage is nearly a joke to most players, finally the job wage picks up, and those who can not do good business are left behind.with their min wages and derelict buildings - Plenty of town space for further development. houses are all over the place and prices vary mostly by player or location, and demand to expand ones town.

What's next? weapons are still slow on the uptake, and perhaps it wont be long before we have an "underground" type feel, where battling is common and econ is challenging. I see a revolution happening with town tax's due to the current demand to fill up extra space, and a lack of new buildings may make this even worse.

Anyone care to add/change this? It's nice to see how the economy evolves from start to maturity, always seems to be different each time, but leads to a general path I think of low prices and select ammount of wealthy players sneering from their hilltops Gotta love immergence. the story isn't going to be exact, some of it depends on perspective, but I think it rougly fits how things have gone so far, and may go from here on.


Anyone want to do one for Sabrada?

[the thibz]

maybe add this for last entry:

End: less player because of getting bored by a world without change. Jehovah owned building everywhere and decaying building... wipe and reset is near (based on gyruss experience)

[zaroba]

nah, that woulden't be anywhere in the list.
if i recall correctly, nigel thinks the worlds should never be reset

[qwerty]

Beginning: High prices, government sells food/drinks and fuel (the basic necessities) at a very high price.

Player owned businesses: First ones to own stores of one type sell their stuff marginally lower than government, thus making huge profits.

Competition: As more players own buildings of the same type, prices start to fall.

End: Everything is sold marginally over make price. Nobody cares where they buy their stuff from as stuff are equally priced everywhere. This happens because everything's oversupplied. Reset.

[hedgehog]

End: Everything is sold marginally over make price. Nobody cares where they buy their stuff from as stuff are equally priced everywhere. This happens because everything's oversupplied. Reset.

see i'm inclined to agree with nige here, in that i propose if a world isn't reset and a world owner doesn't feel the loss-of-popularity pressure, you wait it out a bit, buildings wildly go up for sale, and you get a ton of newbie kids that have some fun buying stuff up and keeping the econ going.

it probably doesn't happen right away. maybe it's a few days. weeks. months.

eventually as the newbie and less-than-veteran econ begins to liven up, it should re-peak veteran interest, and the cycle then replays as the vets beef up the newbs, take them down, lose interest, drop off, and the bottom feeders return again to thrive.

ithis is totally why tunbridge was my favorite econ, and why i'm glad we have enough active econ worlds that it allows this sort of experimentation.

[qwerty]

see i'm inclined to agree with nige here, in that i propose if a world isn't reset and a world owner doesn't feel the loss-of-popularity pressure, you wait it out a bit, buildings wildly go up for sale, and you get a ton of newbie kids that have some fun buying stuff up and keeping the econ going.

it probably doesn't happen right away. maybe it's a few days. weeks. months.

eventually as the newbie and less-than-veteran econ begins to liven up, it should re-peak veteran interest, and the cycle then replays as the vets beef up the newbs, take them down, lose interest, drop off, and the bottom feeders return again to thrive.

The top players are unlikely to quit the world. Sure, they become more inactive, but that makes stuff even more, shall I say, irritating. The richest will have loads of buildings, but they come to check on them rather rarely. I doubt the "recycling" would actually take place: The rich, who do not quit, get even richer as other rich players die. This would go on generation after generation. I see no point in competiting against someone who's been on a world for 3 "generations", as there is surely no way one can catch up with them.

I suppose the economy could be reborn if the building damage was set high enough.
High building damage would be a real challenge in a new, developing world, though. Sure, the building damage could be set really high when the world seems to be on a dieing stage, but that'd be a half-reset, kinda.

Resetting a world makes it appeal to both, newbies and vets.

[hedgehog]

wuick inactivity limit before your stuff goes up for sale tends to sort that. *shrug*

[qwerty]

wuick inactivity limit before your stuff goes up for sale tends to sort that. *shrug*

Under a week'd kill a lot of active players too (vacations etc.).

[hedgehog]

sell to yer friends. you have people house-sit in real life

[Nigel]

I agree with hedge. I do think that worlds should wait out longer, because frankly, the only people who seem to complain for resets are mostly the ones at the top of the ladder, and other people still want to chance to climb it. It would be nice to see an economy keep going to see what happens. I think when there are more world owners, a few will berhaps decide to take this route.

Instead of trying from the beginning to get to the top, I think it's much more fun climbing up the ladder

nah, that woulden't be anywhere in the list.
if i recall correctly, nigel thinks the worlds should never be reset

I never said never rest, that'd be stupid, all I think is that worlds should be given more of a chance, and correct me if im wrong, 5 times out of 10 a world resets because the owner is bored, not the players.

[Malkiah]

I like the part about whats next, yup a revolution is coming, might be my death for all the kills ive tooken on Planitia, some have become so outraged with my killing on Death Valley, (IE LaVae) that they swear at me, go nuts and curse, ending up in a bann, i only wish to apologize for my cruel killing spree, and im sure this revolution is going to be good, i want everyone to fight on the island.

[zaroba]

owner is bored? i highly doubt that. please don't tell me you think an owner sits on his island 24/7 wondering around like a stray cat.
an owner has the same stuff to do 2 months after an islands start as they do 1 week after an islands start. which is mainly help players, drive around, chat, other stuff. this would be the exact stuff to do after resetting an island. bored? maybe back in 0.03.35 when thier was only 1 island, but thiers more islands now, all the current and most of the past island owners spent time playing other islands, not just sitting on thier island. then thiers also the internet and stores full of video games, and real life stuff.

recycle? tunbridge ever recycled? if i remember correctly, it never got popular again, and the economy was complete crap 5 months after it started. sure new players could have fun in it, but for what? a few days? even they diden't actively play it because they went in and saw an island where rarly anybody else ever logged in, a map flooded with unworking buildings, and barly any money to be made. i remember trying to teach new players on tun after it died. it was a ungodly hard because thier was nothing to do, barly any food, barly any working buildings or jobs. if anything, tunbridge was telling new players that the game wasen't worth playing. the island was dead and nearly always empty. it was more of a waste then helpful in its state. especially when it could easily be reset and provide much more fun for much more people.

Nearly all of the people that ever wanted zoric reset in the past were people NOT anywhere on any top lists. because as qwerty said, they find it impossible to do anything with all the rich players ruling over everything. inactivity limit? building decay? these don't really help it much, if at all. sure, they will extend an islands economy, but not by much, as people flood into the markets and quickly balence it out.

a high building decay will do more harm to a poor player then to a rich player that can easily afford to repair thier stuff on a weekly basis. If you think a rich player will be hurt by the decay, then what will happen to the already poor player? they will either die and get a reset, or give up on the island entirly.
inactivity limit? thiers nothing to stop a player from logging in once every x days to keep that from effecting them. 99% of rich, inactive players do that unless thier really bored and sick of an island, gyruss is an example of this. players got rich, got to top wealth, went inactive and eventually stopped logging in totally because they were sick of the island and had absolutly no desire to play it, not even to log in to stay alive.
i've had more rich people on zoric get thier characters reset and try to get on top again then i've had ask for the island to be reset.

i think the main reason why no owners follow your idea of waiting is because why should an island sit around on a pc wasting electricity and waiting to possibly get popular with a few people instead of resetting and providing fun for many more right away?

[Rueges]

i just didnt like tunbridge period..

[hedgehog]

please don't tell me you think an owner sits on his island 24/7 wondering around like a stray cat.
an owner has the same stuff to do 2 months after an islands start as they do 1 week after an islands start. which is mainly drive around, chat, other stuff.

that sounds a lot like just sittin about not doin anythin :]

help players,

i read this as "feck with the settings and screw stuff up".

one of the biggest complaints that's been made, by some of the clueyest players we have no less, is that the second things start getting rough, the island owner steps in and plunks down some new building or does some shinola that makes it easy: usually screwing over another player poised to get rich in the process.

recycle? tunbridge ever recycled?

it didn't. that's entirely the point.

if i remember correctly, it never got popular again, and the economy was complete crap 5 months after it started. sure new players could have fun in it, but for what? a few days?

i can only comment from my experience, but i joined after tun had already been considered dead. about 5 other "newbie regulars" and myself had some of the best fun i've ever had playin this thing. searching ghost towns, scrapping for deals, working towards weapons to squash rival families... all without having to deal with the "pros" very often, as they had moved on to other islands.

after i left to join beta group, i'd come back to tun from time to time, and there were always new clusters of newbies around. most of their problems weren't lack of opportunity, but lack of coordination and combining forces.

anyway you don't really have to worry about it. reset all y'like: nobody's twistin yer arm

[qwerty]

one of the biggest complaints that's been made, by some of the clueyest players we have no less, is that the second things start getting rough, the island owner steps in and plunks down some new building or does some shinola that makes it easy: usually screwing over another player poised to get rich in the process.

This is very true. I have yet to play an island where the owner doesn't interfere in players' businesses.

recycle? tunbridge ever recycled?

it didn't. that's entirely the point.

I don't know about zaroba, but in my post, by recycling I meant the comeback of veterans.[/quote]

[Nigel]

I am not disputing that worlds can get crap after a certain time, as it happens often - but not always, tun is a good example of this. I'm going to get beaten down for saying such a controversial thing, but maybe it all depends on the world, (and the current community too.)

Perhaps it's a problem with the world, not the current community itself? dont get me wrong, i'm not slagging off world owners here, quite the opposite, we have some fantastic worlds, and they all deserve our gratitiude, and I have heard that Junk especially, likes to experiment with settings and things to really get the most out of a planet, perhaps 'problem' is the wrong word, maybe trend fits better. - Everyone is saying that the world would crumble if left unreset- them show me, I reckon with just the right settings and economy, a world could keep going and going and going, high's and lows, ups and downs - like the real world. life is a roller coaster, you can't always expect good times, and it's just as fun crawling from the gutter than laughing at the top when the going's good.

I will gladly retract my beleifs if someone could prove me wrong, I'm not ignorant, but I stand by them until someone shows me that there is no way a non-resetting world could not work.

Just like real life - economy evolves, sure it isn't always great, and I think it's being looked at wrong in this thread - economy worlds are seen like a steep slide down to 0, where it will just get worse and worse until a final reset is needed - It's not like that at all. It's more like a wiggly line, it's not apparant until the world is mature, but as soon as it gets there, it gets reset and doesn't have the chance, so how would you really know what you are saying is true untill you've seen it has 0 chance of working?

I might be wrong, but I might be right too.

[qwerty]

Nigel, there is no point in comparing real life to Universal.

Perhaps it's a problem with the world, not the current community itself?

Something's certainly wrong with the community: You for one (one of many, don't take it personally) try to "help" the economy with prices that marginally make profit. As the worlds are quite small, and factories on them are set to produce rather high quantities, this often kills competition. This makes the world (or some economies on it) leap straight to the "End"-phase. A long production line could stop this from happening, but even then it only takes two people who wish to make the people happier by selling at low prices.

Every single world owner seems quite reluctant to set building prices high. This too is one of the factors that makes it so easy to kill competition. I'd love to see a world where government only rents buildings (apartments too) in the beginning. I'd also want to see wage grant disabled (or set very small) and unemployment benefit set quite low (new feature: make it be paid only if you have a working skill).

End: Everything is sold marginally over make price. Nobody cares where they buy their stuff from as stuff are equally priced everywhere. This happens because everything's oversupplied. Reset.

[Nigel]

One question - why are you bringing in an in-game argument into a thread? we're on about world longetivity, not current econ dynamics on planitia.

But seeing as you brought it up, and it does seem to have some relevence, this is the last time im going to say it - I made one mistake with low town tax's, and ever since you've been on my case about prices - I sell 1d wood because everyone else does now, and I'm just going with the flow. For someone so eager for a reset, you sure do complain about the current one

And the reason for that so well put problem qwerty, is because when one person does it, everyone else follows, or gets bullied to in the end anyway by potential customers - one easy way to solve it would be to do this: Ignore the people who sell low, and ignore the people who demand the low prices.

One way to solve this would be thus: Make the production prices slightly random, you would have to be active to keep up, and prices could never fall to a minimum low for long. This would have to be a setting

Instead of shouting reset as if anything cant be done to save a world, perhaps you should spend your time more meaningfully trying to figure out ways to save the econ ?

[qwerty]

One question - why are you bringing in an in-game argument into a thread when it's this off track? we're on about world longetivity, not current econ dynamics on planitia.

How on earth can you see it as irrelevant? Current econ. status of Planitia (or any other world for that matter) is certainly ontopic discussion. See your starting post.

But seeing as you brought it up, this is the last time im going to say it - I made one mistake with low town tax's, and ever since you've been on my case about prices - I sell 1d wood because everyone else does now, and I'm just going with the flow. For someone so eager for a reset, you sure do complain about the current one

If this part of the text had any function, or a point, I totally missed it.

And the reason for that so well put problem qwerty, is because when one person does it, everyone else follows, or gets bullied to in the end anyway by potential customers - one easy way to solve it would be to do this: Ignore the people who sell low, and ignore the people who demand the low prices.

When there's enough players selling at a low price, the world will leap to the "End"-phase. See my last post. There's no point in ignoring other players' price changes especially if the product is oversupplied, as this has a large impact on your sales.

One way to solve this would be thus: Make the production prices slightly random, you would have to be active to keep up, and prices could never fall to a minimum low for long. This would have to be a setting .

There's no reason to punish inactive players. A Tractor was "marketed" as a game that both active and inactive players can play. True, a lot has changed since then, but I don't think this has.
Active rich players with lots of buildings would probably find this irritating, too.

Instead of shouting reset as if anything cant be done to save a world, perhaps you should spend your time more meaningfully trying to figure out ways to save the econ ?

Is this thread not about how to save a world (or if it can be saved)? I've pointed out some major problems, of which some can be fixed with right world settings, that make everlasting worlds impossible. I've even given examples of settings that could work.

As a player (not a world owner) there's little I can do to save the economy of eg. Planitia.

When have I been "eager for reset" or "shouting for reset"?
I've said reset is the reasonable thing to do when a world is close to death.

[Nigel]

I never said you are shouting for a reset, you assumed that. And it would not be a punishment, set the random production price change the same as the current inactivity limit. Simple, problem solved. There would be no punishment, and the world could not go on for too long with the totally low 1d price - true the settings would have to be tweaked like most things, but I could honestly see it working - it that's the major world problem qwert, then there's the solution - right?

So:

You might make 20 wood from a tree one month, 25 the next, or 18 some other month - bad example, but you get the point.

If it cost 1s in extra costs to make something (say a bag of bricks), you could make it a random number between say 1s - 3s - so every month (or whatever), the prices would shift, and you'd have to adapt to that - be quite cool really